I pulled her onto my lap, still leading her by her hair. She guided me, put me where she wanted me. I felt her heat, her need, envelop me; she arched, and I pulled her down. We both gasped at the union. She bit my shoulder as I pulled her breast free of her dress and teased her nipple with my teeth. There was no thought; there was action and reaction, risk and reward.
Some gray time later, in her big bed, in her lovely, lonely house on this pretty island of make-believe, after many hours of rough games, of playing at master and servant, of passion, pleasure, and pain, we were making love again, slowly, almost sleepily. I looked into Kynthia’s eyes, down into the core of her. She was open and raw and vulnerable. She had given me every part of herself, but it had been for the most selfish of reasons. I understood that perfectly. There was no lying between us in this place, and that was a sort of magic too, far rarer than any alchemy or spell.
“Who … who do you need me to be?” she asked. “Tell me, who do you want me to be?”
“Magdalena,” I said. “Who do you want me to be?”
“Kristos.” She said the name like a prayer.
“Close your eyes,” I said. I kept mine open.
That was the last time we made love before we both fell asleep. In a half-aware space, I thought I heard her sobbing. I didn’t try to reach for her, to hold her. I would have been no comfort at all, worse than no comfort.
I awoke feeling like I had been in another fight. I had scratch marks and bruises all over me. Kynthia was gone. I wandered the empty house, silently, looked at photos on the walls of ghosts in people suits, and left.
I made it back to the villa in the late afternoon. I found Vigil in a ratty Ohio State T-shirt and sweats sitting at the dining table with one of his pistols disassembled in front of him. He was running a metal rod with a small cleaning cloth attached to the end through the gun’s barrel. He didn’t even look up at me as I walked in.
“Left or right?” he asked absently.
“Between the ears, if you please,” I said. “I feel like someone emptied a dirty ashtray into my skull.”
“So how was your … investigation?” he asked.
“I got something,” I said.
“Go see a doctor,” he said.
“You’re a real card,” I said. “We’re headed for L.A.” Vigil looked up; he seemed a little impressed, but he hid it well.
“Okay,” he said. “You can keep the kneecap. I’m not carrying your ass onto the plane.”
SEVEN
LAX was a madhouse on greased wheels, and one of the wheels wobbled the wrong way, like a bad shopping cart. People from all over the world landing in, and getting the hell out of, planet L.A. I began to feel the city’s energy, its rhythm, again about twenty minutes before final approach, as we began to pass over the outlying colonies and glittering arms of the great beast squatting at the edges of the desert and the sea. It had been a while since I had been here. I hadn’t called it home in almost thirty years. When business pulled me back to L.A. I always got out of town quick, before I ran into an old enemy, or worse, an old friend. As the years ground on, it got harder to keep the distinction straight.
Ankou’s private jet landed, and we were escorted by more of the Fae crime boss’s soldiers, looking like models for the Vogue Yakuza spring fashion edition, to a shit-brown, nondescript-looking, late-model Dodge van with a couple of faded bumper stickers in Spanish and an ancient BABY ON BOARD yellow yield sticker on the hatchback window. It wasn’t exactly caviar in the back of a stretch limo, and that seemed weird for Ankou. All of the security detail were on their toes, acting like we were going to get jumped before we got out of the terminal. I looked over to Vigil and saw he had picked up on the vibe as well. He nodded to me and then accelerated a few steps to walk beside the security detail leader, an ex-military-looking fella.
“What’s with all the amped security, Sergeant?” Vigil asked. Sarge kept walking, not even pausing to look at Vigil.
“Nothing that need concern you, short-ear. Just keep walking and watch the wizard.” Vigil didn’t miss a beat. He stepped in front of the still-walking sergeant and drove the heel of his hand hard under his chin. Vigil’s other hand held the back of the man’s skull, shoving it forward into the strike. The security guy stopped and jerked back from the force of the strike, sputtering. The inside of his mouth was bloody. He blinked. Vigil had hit him so fast, even watching it made you doubt whether it had actually happened. Vigil’s hands were back at his side. He looked into Sarge’s watering eyes with the same expression as before the exchange: calm, serene.
“You know how to swear like you’re one of them, don’t you, you blunt-eared little primate? Do you know my title?” Sarge looked down and said nothing. “Answer me, flyspeck. You know that’s what they call you—blunt ears—when you’re not around, flyspeck? That’s all you’ll ever be to them; they blink and you’re dust. Don’t get no grand motherfucking notions that it ain’t so.”
Sarge was sullen, and I saw the smoldering rage behind his runny eyes. After a moment, he muttered through bloodstained teeth, “Yes, Sir Burris.”
“You and your detachment will address me by my title,” Vigil said, “or I’ll bathe in the watery blood of every single
